The Middle-of-the-Night Jottings on Christmas-Themed Post-Its....

The last two weeks I've found my mind still in Pinned but Fluttering mode when I get ready for bed after posting the new chapter late. Last week some tings I wanted to address in the next chapter came to mind, so I grabbed the ever-present Christmas-themed pad of Post-It notes and, in minuscule penmanship, jotted down five Post-Its of ideas.


After getting up the next morning, I unstuck them from the bathroom mirror, brought them downstairs, and stuck them to a blank page in my "Scribblings" journal--a place in which I jot chapter ideas, points not to forget, elements to bring back in, and rough drafts of many a failed poem.


So there they are (pictured above): the basis for Chapter 28 of Pinned but Fluttering.


And this morning was no different. Going to bed at nearly 5:00 AM (when normal people are getting up, of course) after staying up all night to ready my new online classroom for the teaching of Little Women, the opening lines for Chapter 29 came to me. So again I reached for the pad of Christmas-themed Post-Its and jotted down the opening lines (subject to later revision, of course).


Here is what I wrote:

"What did I do?" I asked weakly, the room still reverberating from the sheer force of Edward's dramatic exit.

Alice seemed completely unperturbed. "Oh, it was nothing you did, Bella," she said, waving a hand toward me airily. Then she flashed me a wide grin, a "cat-just-ate-the-canary" kind of grin. Refusing to say another word, she returned to watching Downton Abbey. I tried to join her, but as engrossing as the Crawley family and household staff were, they were the furthest topic from my thoughts....

So there we are!! Now that my speaking engagements are over (although I was asked back to do the Journaling Workshop again in May), I have more time to breathe...and perhaps even write! Of course, I'm not even thinking about my "normal life" of teaching two online courses this week (teaching one is more than enough!!), homeschooling the boybarians, and just living.


But I'm still hoping to get some writing done before the weekend so I don't have to stay up so late (and keep my Wattpad readers up so late, too) posting the next chapter. I also want to write an EPOV Outtake...and after Edward's rather dramatic exit at the end of Chapter 28, perhaps now is the time. Could I do both this week? I seriously doubt it...but who knows?


And guess what? On Wattpad yesterday, Pinned but Fluttering reached a quarter of a million reads!!! 250,000!!! And last night, Evening Star reached half a million reads--that's 500,000 reads!! WOW!!!! I love my readers sooooooo much!!! :) :) :)


Okay, getting back to my real life of juggling home education with teaching outside classes....


Writing for you,
--Cassandra :)